Numinous
by pariloo
Summary: "Really, I'm sad but pretending I'm happy. I'm doing that because I think people won't like me if I'm being sad." Kaneki explains how he copes – or doesn't cope – when he is in that deep dark place after the events with Yamori. [First person POV. Eventual Touken/Slight Hidekane]
1. Cold

**My hands are dying.**

I keep trying to explain it to Touka-chan, but she just looks at me like I'm batshit crazy, those dark eyes flashing with disbelief.

"They don't feel warm—they haven't." I squeeze the tips of my fingers as hard as I can, which hurts. "They're not numb, though..."

"Maybe you have that...Raynaud's disease," the girl says. She takes my right hand and studies the digits. They seem healthy, a little pale, but otherwise healthy. Touka shakes her head, frowning. "They're not blue."

"But they're cold."

"They feel warm to me."

"They feel cold," I insist. For some reason I can feel myself growing anxious.

"Okay, Kaneki," she says, barely putting any effort into concealing the accusation and judgement that practically dripped from her voice's octaves. "They're cold."

I jerk my hands from hers and then rub them together. Friction. Heat. Touka can say what she wants; they're freezing. It's the hottest _fall_ Tokyo has seen in something like ten years, but I still haven't been able to get my hands warm since_ it_ happened. Hide says it's because of global warming.

I hold them up to eye-level again.

They don't even look like my hands anymore. They don't even look like anything that could belong to me, even though they're clearly attached.

"They're different," I tell her quietly.

"Would you put your hands down?" Touka draws darkly. "Jesus."

My hands have changed. I catch Touka looking at them sometimes, and I can see it on her face that they're different, no matter what she's saying now.

We're at Kamii University, sitting on one of the picnic tables, watching an autumn world go by. Students mess with the water fountains. Pant legs are rolled up despite the colored leaves falling from the trees and small wind.

Freshly-bought food leads it's grotesque scent to my nostrils; the nostalgic smell easily reaches my glands and settles onto my tongue, almost making me gag.

Almost.

Besides the fact, the heavy smell of burgers and fries reminds me that the fridge back at my apartment is empty and I have to go shopping today or Hide will pretty much starve. The blonde-haired boy has been staying with me ever since I'd returned, in fear that I would disappear again. It's not a problem; I like the company, anyway.

Finally, I break the silence.

"Do you have anything in your fridge?"

The female, mauve-haired ghoul shoots me a sort of grimace and snorts. "I'm a ghoul, idiot. I don't need a fridge."

Her "yelling voice"—as I call it—has been a lot softer now then it was before _**it**_ happened.

Brushing away the white bangs that flank my ocular vision, a disheveled sigh recklessly drives past my broken lips. It sounds tired.

_It doesn't sound like me._

"That's not why I asked. I have to go grocery shopping and I don't know what to get..." I rest my chin in my palm. "And I really don't want to do it."

She hops off the picnic table, sweeping her hair behind an ear with a finger.

The dark-haired girl gives me that look. That bored look that hides the concern and fear under it like a plaster mask. I can see it, but pretend not to notice.

"Let's go, then."

* * *

We end up in produce. I give myself a headache over the kind of math you have to use to buy food, which you need to live. Or humans, at least. I don't even know what Hide wants or what he needs or how much I should be spending or what's reasonable to spend. I haven't shopped in what feels like...ages.

"It's not hard," Touka states, but even she sounds kind of unsure.

It is hard. I've never done this before. Or for someone else, at least.

I never had to.

We move to the frozen foods and after a moments time of inner turmoil, I start shoving TV dinners into my cart and then go to the dairy isle to get cheese and bread because it seems less hopeless than TV dinners. And then I just stand there, lost. What's next? This is what grown-ups do.

This is what humans do.

_It's such a waste of time._

"Hey," Touka interjects, hands shoved deep into her pockets as if she were trying to grasp an object she just could not reach. Her expression is filled to the brim with something I cannot read. "You there?"

"I'm here," I choke. I think.

Slowly, with Touka-chan following suit, I head back to the freezers and grab some frozen vegetables. I've read somewhere that they're better for you chilled than fresh because they were picked at a perfect moment in time and frozen in it. Fresh vegetables aren't really fresh because as soon as they're out of the ground and on their way to the grocery store, the best parts of them have already started to fade away.

"I should get..."

I trail off and turn in the aisle, trying to ignore the sad faces shuffling past, and then find myself grabbing some ginger ale. I catch Touka's lilac eyes widening from my peripheral. They look worried. Heavy.

_Concerned, shocked, plagued by some massive burden, something I cannot see and cannot figure out and it's hurting, it's hurting, the centipede in my ear, my fingers falling off at the hand of those cold pliers, leaving my digits freezing and gone and gone and gone-_

I snap back to reality. The bottle is in my hand.

_Waiting._

I stick it into the cart and Touka is stiff.

_So stiff._

Ginger ale is only for humans when they're sick—and I know that I'm not sick, 'nor human—but every time I'm at home, I feel like I could puke so that must be close enough.

_**I'll throw it up, anyway.**_


	2. Help

Hide and I are sprawled out on the dry, yellow grass next to Tama River, which curls through Tokyo. This summer is so dry that the water barely trickles by the stones that peak far past its surface. It's painfully low. You could walk across and never get your feet wet.

"Watch this," I say, getting up. "I mean, watch me."

"Got something to show me, Kaneki?"

I give Hide a look.

He returns a lazy smile.

I stand, slip out of my shoes, and edge my way down to the bank. I place one pale, bare foot on a sturdy rock and move to the next closest stone easily, even though it's a lot smaller. I hop to the next and the next until I'm in the middle of the river, which seems far enough. I face the blonde and he claps.

"Take that show on the road!" He calls.

I bow and make my way back to him.

With a sigh, I settle back onto the ground and ease my head against his outstretched shins, like they're a pillow. I stare at the sky.

It's so clear, no clouds or anything. Just the sun, until it burns out billions of years from now.

"What are you thinking?" Hide asks.

I hold up my hands.

I don't even _say_ anything and he goes, "You gonna make me feel your hands again?"

"Why?"

"Because I would, if you asked."

Hide isn't uptight about the whole hand thing like Touka is. He listens to me, nods, and then often reassures me. Never once has he gotten cross with me when I tell him my hands or fingers are cold.

In fact, Hide would do anything for me. He's been my friend since before grade school, when he moved here all those years ago.

I make a hasty decision.

"Tell me about that night. What did you do when you found out I was...taken?"

_**The night I was kidnapped by Aogiri. Tortured.**_

For an extended second, Hide's eyes remain steady and unblinking on my face. A deep vertical line pulls between his brows, as if someone has smacked him upside the skull and he hasn't quite recovered. The expression is tense, like he'd hoped I would have forgotten about that.

**_About what happened during those ten days._ **

He shakes his head.

Hide would _almost_ do anything for me.

I look back at my hands.

"They _are _dying."

He turns his chin towards the water and squints, like he's caught sight of something very interesting, but it's a lie.

The sun is now on him and the more I observe, the more I realize he has the appearance as if he just climbed out of bed...but he always looks like that. His longish blonde hair is always messy around his head. His brown eyes always look kind of sleepy.

I lower my hands.

"So, are you going to be home later tonight?" Hide suddenly asks, his tone cheerful enough to shatter the uncomfortable silence between us into slivers. A grin has slid up his face and settled in.

It's a magnetic, no-holds-barred grin, a grin that's fierce and undeniably sexy, a grin that tugs and tingles somewhere deep and low in my belly.

I remember to reply, but can't help but feel that the smile I push onto my lips is like a too-tight sweater.

"Later..like when?"

"After ten."

He's leaving me soon. I can feel it. Mostly because he has a part-time job as a newspaper delivery boy and it's getting to be that time.

"I'm crashing early tonight," I lie.

* * *

My hand shakes as I reach for the little yellow bottle. I place two of the blue, square-shaped pills on my tongue and allow them to dissolve. I'm not sure what they do; all I know is that they're supposed to help me from the nightmares.

They probably don't work, because I've just woken up from another one. It's frustrating; it's like you're screaming, yelling, caterwauling for help...and nobody can hear you. Save you.

So I lean against the wall until my head clears and I feel stronger on my feet.

That's when I realize that getting dressed is such an ordinary task. It wasn't an obstacle I was anticipating.

I close the bathroom door, in the hopes that Hide won't hear me if I end up struggling. I put a shirt on first; a simple pleasure that requires more effort than killing a human. Then I turn to reach for the folded pair of pants Hide's left for me on the sink and see the shorts, _those_ shorts; the dingy, white shorts, torn at both knees, crumpled in a heap in the corner of this small washroom.

The shorts I wore during _**that **_time.

It's a small reminder, but it's enough to spear me.

I try to fight it off but it lingers, and the more I try to ignore the memory, it multiplies into a monster that can no longer be contained. I don't even realize I've fallen against the vanity until I feel the cold from the granite climbing up my skin; I'm breathing too hard and squeezing my eyes shut against the sudden wash of mortification.

All at once I implore my mind to imagine nothing but walls. Walls. White walls. Blocks of concrete. Empty rooms. Open space.

I build walls until they begin to crumble, and then I force another set to take their place. I build and build and remain unmoving until my mind is clear, uncontaminated, containing nothing but a small white room. A single light hanging from the ceiling.

Clean. Pristine. Undisturbed.

I blink back the flood of disaster pressing against the small world I've built; I swallow hard against the fear creeping up my throat. I push the walls back, making more space in the room until I can finally breathe. Until I'm able to stand.

My eyes open.

The "me" in the bathroom mirror looks so different from the "me" I've been getting to know.

His face is closed, carefully composed. His lips taut, his eyes cool, shuttered, and professional. A mask.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

_**My hands are so, so cold.** _


End file.
